Kalani Tonga

Kalani Tonga is an author, editor, and mother of five currently residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father emigrated from the Pacific island nation of Tonga to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was 13 years old. There, he met Kalani's mother, a high school cheerleader of Swedish ancestry from the other side of The Bay, and they married and started a family. Kalani is the oldest of four siblings.

When she was five years old, Kalani's family moved from California to Texas, and she was often the only Polynesian in any room she entered. Her isolation from the cultural heritage of her father led her to seek out opportunities to serve the Tongan community in her adult life, and she currently facilitates women's empowerment groups for Pacific Islanders in Salt Lake City, where she also started a book club that reads the works of Pacific Islander authors. In a time so long ago she can barely recall it, she played collegiate volleyball at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, and in 2017 she was even inducted into her high school's Athletic Hall of Fame!

Kalani loves music and art, enjoys the happiness and heartache of being a mom, and is passionate about amplifying the voices of the marginalized. Kalani values kindness and intelligence, and is often told that she laughs at inappropriate things.